It is often necessary to access computer files that have been stored on a disk drive or memory device of a network server or other remote computer from a user's computer or terminal. The user's computer or terminal may be connected to the network server or other remote computer by a communications medium or media and communications hardware, such as telephone lines and modems, a local area network and network interface cards, the Internet, or other suitable communications media.
Even though the user's computer is connected in this manner to the network server or other remote computer, it is often difficult to allow more than one user to access a data file at any given time. When a first user is accessing the data file and performing updates to the data file, it is necessary to lock out other users from accessing the data file, so as to prevent multiple concurrent updates from being performed. In particular, the operating system controlling updates to the data file may not be configured to allow other operating systems of other computing platforms to access the data file, so as to prevent corruption of the data file.
Despite the risk of corrupting the data in a data file that may result if multiple users require access to the file, it may still be desirable to allow certain users to view the contents of a data file as it is being updated. For example, the UNIX operating system provides a "tail-f" command that allows a data file to be viewed after it has been saved to a disk drive or other memory device. The "tail-f" command only works, however, for files that are being controlled by a resident version of UNIX. In a multiple computer environment, such as a client-server environment, the UNIX "tail-f" command cannot be used to view the contents of data files.